About 40 years ago, there was an English teacher by the name of Marshall McLuhan who coined a phrase that later became the title of a book he wrote and the phrase was the medium is the message. And what he meant by that was that he observed that the packaging or the form in which you convey information has as much influence over how someone interprets that message as the content. So a story that is told in the venue or the format of a film would be interpreted dramatically differently than if it was told in the form of a comic strip or a night we news program. To perhaps put it in a little bit more familiar terms, what I say to you face to face might be interpreted rather differently if I were to say the same words to you in an email. The medium can sometimes overshadow the meaning such that the medium becomes the message and if you don't account for how that medium can work, you can end up compromising the message you intend and then the listener ends up receiving less knowledge about the subject you're speaking of. Our text this morning in Psalm 19 deals with messages from God revealed through media chosen by God to have an intended effect on those who would know God rightly and so in a poetic form it seeks to answer two questions. What must one know to know God rightly and what will that knowledge necessarily inevitably lead to? Or to put it in terms reminiscent of what Pete reminded us of last week in sort of a statement of identity of our church. What must we know of God so that we live for him? Such is the question the answer comes from the Psalm this day so would you stand for the reading of God's word in Psalm 19. The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals knowledge there is no speech nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber and like a strong man runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens and its circuits to the end of them and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The law of the Lord is perfect reviving the soul the testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple the precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure enlightening the eyes the fear of the Lord is clean and during forever the rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether more to be desired are they than gold even much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb more over by them is your servant warned in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins let them not have dominion over me then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight oh Lord my rock and my redeemer. This is the word of the Lord thanks be to God you may be seated. The psalmist is going to take us on a tour of not God's messages to us and he starts at the macroscopic level. So he says the heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim his handiwork and when he see when he says heavens he is referring to that immeasurable expanse above him filled with light in the day and scattered with stars in the night now in the hebraic cosmology there's two domains. There's the heavens and the earth and so what he says of the skies could equally be applied to what he would say of all of creation all of the earth. So in this sense the heavens and the earth are God's medium and its message that it's sending is that God is glorious. That the immensity and mystery and beauty and power evident in the heavens bespeaks something astounding about him who is responsible for it all. It's the same kind of praise you hear throughout the Psalms. And what he's saying is that unreservedly there is evidence of the glory of God and if you want it just look up. The higher and even although the message of the skies is inaudible what it communicates does not come across by way of spoken word and despite that three things scream from that truth and that truth is unrelenting in its mode. Day to day pours forth speech a night to night reveals knowledge that message is joy giving and a focused phenomenon that's why he compares it to a bridegroom emerging from his honeymoon suite. There's a joy in knowing that you are loved and you bring forth news of good news. And this message is also unlimited in its scope and so like the sun the message rises from the end of the heavens and its circuit to the end of them and there is nothing hidden from its heat. You need to notice two things. His praise here is not for the heavens themselves but for who they point to. His discipline to consider the Lord behind his hand you work and in so doing he avoids what John Calvin warned us all of when he said in his institutes in regard to the fabric and admirable arrangement of the universe how few of us are there who in lifting our eyes to the heavens or looking abroad in the various regions of the earth ever think of the creator. Do we not rather overlook him and sluggishly content ourselves with the view of his works. Our Psalmist is marveling at the inherent dignity of the works but not without considering the one who ascribed that dignity. There's an intention behind the display of that dignity and glory and that leads me to the first point of this text. You and I are to know God as we ought and as he intends we must know him as majestic to understand him as anything less than majestic is not to know him at all and therefore that knowledge would have no effect. But notice also that the Psalmist he isn't making an apologetic for the existence of God based upon what he sees in the heavens he's not saying if he were here today that if you just become an astronomer or a geologist will become a believer. He's saying that those who know God gain a deeper impression a deeper knowledge of him simply by looking at what they survey in the day or night sky or whatever they see in creation. And that patient look has an effect. They behold the structure and the symmetry and the power expressed everywhere and they are humbled by it. In 1990 a film by Lawrence Cazden came out named Grand Canyon and in it Kevin Klein plays a high-powered attorney who works in L.A. And one night he's on his way home from a Lakers game he's driving in his BMW he gets lost in an unfamiliar and let's say unwelcoming neighborhood and his beamer just dies there on the spot breaks down he's stranded. Calls a tow truck driver before the tow truck can show up comes this carful guys whose intentions are immediately clear they have intentions for his BMW. What their intentions are for his life is not quite known yet and just as things about ready to reach ahead up drives the tow truck and out walks the large lumbering tow truck driver named Simon played by Danny Glover. And in the most amazing show of courage and calm he convinces that carful guys to just let him do his job and take this car into the shop. He saves Max life. The next morning they're sitting on the curb together sharing stories introducing themselves to another and Simon just by way of passing asks him you ever been to the Grand Canyon and Mac sheepishly says never have. So Simon tells him his experience of going to the Grand Canyon with these words. When you sit on the edge of that thing you just realize what a joke we people are what big heads we got thinking that what we do is going to matter all that much. It's a split second we've been there the whole lot of us those rocks were laughing at me I could tell me in my worries it was real humorous to that Grand Canyon. We make quibble with a few of the details of his little Sermonette. But on the whole it speaks a truth that's resonant with what the solmous to trying to get across to us in this first section. The astounding size and diversity and beauty and ferocity of all that we see when we take in when we do that it has the capacity to silence us. To silence me in my inflated sense of self importance. The very act of beholding the creation hasn't inherently humbling effect it reveals something subtle yet profound something both true and instructive. And if nothing else it bespeaks the majesty of God. But it's not enough knowing God is majestic is not enough not because the witness is insufficient but because of something in us we don't get it even as we look at the heavens or the earth. There's more to know of God if his message is to have its intended effect upon us. And so without warning without transition the solmous shifts he narrows his focus to the law of God. And just as we heard from Pete last week in Psalm 119 here too the solmous notes six different synonyms for the law of God each having their own distinctiveness but all referring in some way to what God is disclosed of himself in the form of words. The law he says is instruction it is promise it is judgment it is command and it produces reverence in those who hear it and who heed it. The guard for the law of God is so effusive that he can't simply refer to the law in a single sense just like I can't celebrate my wife appropriately without referring to her as my catalyst and my confidant and my cheerleader all those things are true of her but each one of those facets of her existence is worthy of note. The solmous utter is a corresponding attribute he says it restores the soul when your heart is out of joint so to speak something about his promise and his law sets it back in place. It makes wise the simple where you are being a fool it brings enlightenment it brightens your eyes it remove it restores the vigor of the way you see reality it helps you find hope again so if the if the skies themselves were meant to make us aware of God's majesty what is the message that were to receive from God through the medium of his word quite simply it's this isn't my second point. If we're to know God as we ought we must know him as good what his word leads us to indicates that his goodness is there for us what it directs us away from or in the words of the summit what it warns us of that's an indicator of his goodness to us. Now we tend not to think about laws very much much less relishing what they say or what they command or what they authorize and see us Lewis when he used on this song it first it seemed odd to him that the solmous would rejoice in the commands of God especially when the laws are sometimes so hard to keep and when it seems so seemingly worth breaking in order to get something we need he didn't get it how could he relish the law. But when is the last time you just stopped and paused and given thanks for the guidance that you find in his law just take for instance anything that he might have said like what he says about truth telling or lying when I mean law here I mean law in the full orbsense of Old Testament and New Testament what does it say about line you shall not bear false witness you're yes shall be yes you're no shall be no but for some reason we find ourselves wanting to stretch it the truth. We want to withhold the truth we want to conceal the truth because we think it will help us get what we want to preserve what we need but when we lie we defraud someone else of the right to the truth we perhaps place someone or something in danger when we conceal important information how much damage has made off done because of his deceit. It even worse we said a precedent for own souls that makes further lying that much easier to commit if line for works for us once we're led to believe it will work again and in time we order our world around lies and whenever the real truth comes out the fallout is proportional to the scope and the length of the deceit whereas if we just heated his simple call tell the truth you avoid all the madness. That's the benefit of his law and that's why he celebrates it and we should to take what God's law says about fidelity has there ever been a good outcome from acting in an unfaithful way to another even when fidelity my infidelity rather might deliver a brief pleasure the long term cost of making that choice far outweighs which you might have gained there's goodness to be found and being faithful and that's why Chesterton says they wouldn't call love a virtue if it weren't for you. It's not hard but lastly consider about what God says about seeking the praise of men rather than in basking in the approval of God in the sermon on the mount Jesus warns us of doing our righteous acts in order to be seen by men in order to get their praise for he says if you seek that reward it's nothing compared to what you receive in doing your righteousness for the sake of God alone. Make it a step further if you order your lives around the praise of people you will burn out chasing what is always changing in human opinion and you will go crazy living for something that never satisfies because isn't it true but whatever joy or whatever ability you might receive from someone giving you praise it never lasts but when you live for the glory of God you rest in something that can never be taken away but doesn't fade with time. And living for his glory will therefore never tempt you to compromise your convictions or harm yourself or another person. And that's why CS Lewis upon reflection realized the reason the Psalmist is rejoicing over the stringent laws of God is because he is quote being ravished by the moral beauty of the Lord. The law is the medium God is chosen to send us the message that he's good and we've got to know that if we're to know God as he intends and yet and yet it's not enough it's good to know his goodness but it's not enough and we should expect to hear the Psalmist recognize a certain limitation in his faith and what the law can do for him because it's a sentiment expressed throughout the scriptures. When it comes to the heavens Paul says in Romans 1 that even though there's enough in creation that we can detect a divine presence we are still capable and longing to exchange the glory of the creator for created things. And when it comes to the law even the Lord Jesus and the sermon on the Mount says I did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it and by that he means the law is holy and righteous and good and yet he says that in the shadow of the cross that awaits him and he goes to that cross because we didn't abide by the law and we cannot. The law is not enough. So what is what else do we need the Psalmist started the tour. He started the tour of God's glory in the heavens and then he focused in on the glory that's found in all his instruction but here at last his focus narrows even further while at the same time striking a very different tone. Listen in verse 12 who can discern all his errors declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also for presumptuous sins let them not have dominion over me then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. He began this Psalm in an exalted mood and now the best we can say he is sobered when he has looked away from the sky and looked away from the page with the law and he looks deeply inside his own heart. He seems a very different landscape. He sees his capacity to transgress against God's will in unintentional ways but he also sees that capacity to do so in blatant, high handed ways and far worse. Not only does he recognize his propensity to sin but he knows that he can actually become enslaved to the very thing he knows is abhorrent. When he says let them not have dominion over me that is a very honest confession of what he believes his heart is capable of but he can not only sin but he can end up loving sins so much that it's a tyranny to him and that's why the Psalm changes from a praise to a plea. He besieges the Lord to have his unwitting sins acquitted. He begs for God's restraining power against those sins he knows he's prone to commit willfully and then as one commentator put it when the Psalmist is asking to be acquitted the verb he chooses really connotes a desire to have the very inclination of sin removed from his heart. He's asking for renovation of that heart. He's heard from the heavens, he's heard from the law and now he's hearing from the depths of his own heart and the question to you is do you hear it? Do you hear in your heart the same thing the Psalmist hears in his name we that despite all the good reasons to act in an upstanding way despite all the blessings that should have the effect of making you grateful at every moment. Do you hear your heart's ability to put all that aside and to act like Adam did and try to live independently of God that's why if we're to know God is he intends we've got to know him is gracious. I shall be ravished by him so much that I want to be like him only until I recognize but unless he is gracious to me I am lost without him. The Psalmist sees that grace in his willingness to forbear to forgive to renovate but brothers and sisters where do we see that willingness to show grace most fully and majestically displayed it is of course in the cross of the Lord's Son. The message through the medium of his cross is that we needed more than the majesty of the heavens or the goodness of the law to know God is he intends we needed grace upon grace to penetrate our hearts with the knowledge of God. Someone at the most recent young adult apologetics night a few weeks ago asked a really perceptive question he said you Christian say you believe in grace and that you're forgiven in Christ but it seems like all your attendance at all these Bible studies and mission trips and service projects are just one big attempt to pay God back or to avoid punishment. Perceptive question I think because it's true you and I indeed can slip back into an unconscious belief that if only I do enough of this or do enough of that then God will like me and he'll be happy with me but if you believe the gospel then you have to rest in the fact that you're already forgiven and you're already favored you can't subtract from Christ's work and you can't compensate for it when you've been faithless. And so it's only when you know God is gracious in his son but you are so ravished by that grace that your motivation to serve him is not to pay him back or to get him off your back but because you want to follow the one who loves you like that and then your life becomes an expression of what the psalmist concludes his poem with. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight oh Lord my rock and my redeemer. The intended effect of all these messages all this knowledge is a longing that what rises to my mouth and what is buried deeply in my heart will all give God pleasure. And so at the outset of this sermon we asked two questions what must we know of God to know God truly in the Psalm answers we must know him as majestic as good and as gracious. We also asked what will that knowledge necessarily lead to at least according to this Psalm it will be a life full of praise of humble pleading and of pursuing the pleasure of God so by way of application let me first say this. If you have joined us today and you are at agnostic on these matters but Jesus to you is a source of intrigue but not a source of worship but you have problems with the idea that God had a hand in creation or that the law is authoritative let me say this. Discussions about competing theories of the origins of the universe or about the veracity of the Bible those are discussions worth exploring and I'd love to do that with you. But may I suggest that your investigation into Jesus continue not at the outer rim of the universe but at the recesses of your own heart. Because it is inevitable if you are honestly appraising your soul that there is stuff in your last week that you are not proud of there is conflictedness in your soul you don't know what to do with there are things in your past you would rope no one ever knew. But when you look at the cross of Jesus that is the most blatant evidence of a God who knows precisely who you are and loves you anyway so I bid you to continue your investigation into Jesus there through the medium of your own heart. If you are a believer it would seem that by this text the normal Christian life is a life full of praise for his majesty and goodness and a life full of pursuit of his pleasure by trusting deeply in his grace. And where that praise or pursuit is lacking there is need for repentance. And so this day I call you to repent where you do not see that praise where you do not feel that praise and I do so in a humble way by telling you a story of where I needed to repent about a week ago. My wife was going to go take some pictures of some friends at the Arboretum and she suggested that the whole family go and I said sure. Now when you take two kids anywhere as you know it's an act of congress to get them out of the door to remove all the stuff from the car that you don't need and then put all the stuff that you do need in the car. And then to do so also all under a time frame it adds urgency to it and with that I became a little pouty shall we say at the whole process. We're driving eastward at night 30 and I can feel the silence growing over me because I'm getting upset about how my Sunday is being changed. And when we get there the petulence just continues my wife departs to go take pictures of some friends I'm left to take care of the kids as they frolic among the gardens. And for most of my time there I'm in a mood because I'm not thankful to be able to care for my kids and I'm probably already beginning to worry about how will you think of this sermon. And I'm totally oblivious to the astounding scenery that surround me and I sit there on a park bench and I recognize there's no praise on my lips. Either for the splendor that's surrounding me or for the privilege and the responsibility of caring for my children that the law gives me. Why? Because I'm so consumed with what I want and because I'm concerned about how others might receive me the following week in a sermon. Friends, the degree to which you praise God for his majesty and goodness is proportional to the degree to which you trust him for his grace. And when you trust him for his grace you will not be consumed by what you want because you know that what you've been granted in the gospel is far better than you could ever imagine or get for yourself. And when you trust in the grace of God you are not preoccupied with the approval of others because you're already convinced that you have the approval of the only one who matters namely the God who ratified that approval by the blood of his son. And so I call you to repent as I called myself to repent. I repent to the Lord and then I repent to my wife in an email the next day. I want you to consider why there's a lack of praise for his majesty and his goodness. And then recognize that when you rest truly in the grace of the gospel the Lord Jesus there is no circumstance or concern that will stifle the praise that you're meant and will want to express. And then at last the knowing you have will be a true knowing of God because it's a living of what you know and then the messages he has sent through the media he has chosen will have the effect he intended and then you will praise him.